Get a grip woman!

Thanks Karmacat and welcome Frugaliza! :wave: I was hoping you might be by.

That is an amazing exceed for January, my target is an ambitious £11k but that does include the £2k I need to pay for DH's car that we paid for with a 0% cash transfer for 1.9% fee after he wrote off our seven year old commuting car (a sad tale of driving too tired and not concentrating enough on a busy trunk road on a Friday night commute home). Yes, spa is state pension age - mine is 66 at the moment - so a bit of an air gap between stopping work and being eligible for that.

I had planned for spa at 62 but the implementation was much more rapid than I anticipated. While I fully support equality of pension age, what my generation of women actually have is a discriminatory implementation that did not give us time to properly plan or implement any sort of compensatory measures.

Sorry for the rant!

Frugaliza wrote: »

So are you looking to fund a 6 year gap then between 60'and spa? I'll be similar funding a gap of 7 years between retirement on a classic DB pension at 60 and then waiting for 7 years for my alpha DB scheme and state pension to kick in.

Just a bit less than 6 years as I plan to leave just before my 61st birthday so that a short period of temporary promotion remains pensionable in my final Classic "best of the last 3".

On that note, I believe that if the best of your last 3 for pension purposes is the oldest of the three years, they do apply the indexation for the intervening years. When we spoke about opting out and opting back in again (on your query thread, before you started your diary) - that was the main benefit for anyone whose Classic DB has been frozen - you should still check that with MYCSP. I am not up to date with Classic into Alpha as it does not apply to me - but if your frozen classic is not being index-increased between April 15 and your retirement date, you should not throw that increase away, and opting out and in would secure it. Especially with expected inflation for the next few years.

This post is not associated with debt, so do skip if it is of no interest!

I am going to say here that I have decided to try and reduce the amount of sugar and carbs in my diet to see if I feel any better after a few weeks. I seem to be so tired at the moment, not sleeping as well as normal, and eating left-over snacks and sweet things without thinking.

I am not diabetic (as far as I know) but I could be - I am fat, female, and fifty something. I walk to and from the London destination mainline Station and my office (around 12 minutes brisk walk, each way) - it could be worse - three stops on the underground! and I garden, but not much recently. My other walking has reduced too much - so diet and exercise.

My friend has been type 2 diabetic for about 14 years. She had been struggling with her sugar levels for some months - having dieted down from a size 20+ to 12 when first diagnosed, and pretty much stayed there, ever since. I saw her at New Year and she is a size 8 and her sugars are all normal. From someone on a warning trip to insulin, she has turned it round. Maybe it won't be permanent, but she looked fantastic, and had lots of energy and felt in control. So I would like to feel a bit of that wellbeing.

I have been reading the Michael Mosley book (he of "Trust me, I'm a Doctor" fame), the 8-week blood sugar diet. And while I am not totally counting, I have decided to adopt the key principles.

I started on Wednesday, it being the first of the month. Timing should be good as I generally give things up for lent (fiscal as well as calorific!) and with 28 days in Feb I will know when 8 weeks is up, without trying - and although my birthday is in there, it's not a special one (except to my Mum!), I am going on hols, walking, for the first week of April. So timing, pretty good. Even the weather has shown willing, with a 4 degree boost over Monday and Tuesday ;-)

Well I got on the scales, third morning (he recommends regular weighing, more frequently than the "once a week" myth) and what do you know? 7lb gone (probably all fluid at this stage) - nevertheless, feeling ever so slightly thrilled, and wanted to share. Hopefully that will inspire me to stick to it, we shall see.

Thanks boxofpaws. As you know, I have been enjoying reading your diary. I may reflect some of your recording things over here on mine. I especially like the good things bad things bit.

Thanks Bobarella. I am really writing my dilemma down and trying to focus on the things I can change (so spa is outside my control). Our other financial complication is our Son's circumstances.

He is a young man with a passion for music but sadly, no money in that. He works in an unrelated field, but it pays little and does not have enough challenge in it to be interesting for him. We bought a second house with him (using money of his that he inherited at 21 plus a bit from us) he holds 25% of it and therefore lives there rent free. His collection of maturing friends have all but one, left there owing us money for rent or bills. So while we own 75% of a house, we have little prospect of materialising the asset without making him homeless. We pay for the maintenance from the rent we do receive, and with young people there, the wear and tear is greater than we were expecting. We fitted replacement windows last year and so have an interest free commitment for another 18 months on that house. If he settles to something we would like to sell it to him really, but he is a fritterer with money at the moment.

I have been considering saying to him, pay us x amount a month for 20 years and it is yours but he is too fragile in employment at the moment. I expect we spoilt him by making it too easy, too early. It's another thing I keep coming back to. If sold, it could clear our mortgage, but he would spend the capital, or it could form part of DH's pension as monthly payments against a fixed loan. We could consider an inflator but not interest, I guess. Then renting the other rooms is his decision, and his to keep under control.

When do Sons grow up?